we drew a map to a better place
by foreverwriting9
Summary: Flynn and Vega and the atlas of events that led them to where they are today.


**I've been wanting to try my hand at writing Motive fic for _forever_. Seriously. I've really enjoyed reading all of your ****stories for the past few months, and I figured now was the time to finally contribute something. Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>1.<p>

It's raining.

The sky is slate grey and misty and today Angie Flynn meets her new partner.

She slips out of her car, slinging her bag over her shoulder before nudging the door shut with her hip. Puddles already cover the street in front of the precinct entrance, so she hopscotches her way around them, pausing once to look up when a particularly loud roll of thunder rumbles overhead. By the time she gets inside and into the elevator, she has raindrops caught in her curls and she's more than eight minutes late.

"C'mon." She kicks ineffectually at the side of the elevator, willing it to go faster. When the doors finally open, she steps out into the early morning quiet of the bullpen and throws her coat down onto the nearest chair. _Ten minutes late_. She can see Boyd through the windows of his office talking to a dark haired man.

Angie tries sneaking in when Boyd's back is turned and pretending like she's been there all along.

It doesn't work.

"Oh, Flynn," he says, catching sight of her and frowning slightly to let her know he's on to her game, "nice of you to join us."

She grins, waving her fingers at him. "I'll bring you an apple next time, teacher."

He half rolls his eyes. "Sure." Then he gestures from her to her new partner. "Flynn, Vega. Vega, Flynn."

She turns to the well-dressed man next to her, measuring him up, imagining herself trusting this man with her life. For some reason she ends up focusing on his feet. "Nice shoes," she says.

Without missing a beat he cocks his head at her and asks, "Do you own an umbrella?"

A drop of water chooses that moment to slide loose from her hair and travel down the slope of her nose. "Well, for the money you spent on those shoes you probably could have bought me one hundred umbrellas."

His smile is quick and bright, all crinkled eyes and white teeth. (Years from now, she will mock and joke and laugh with him just so she can see that smile.)

Gradually, Angie realizes that she's grinning back at him. _They just might work_. She sticks her hand out. "Angie," she says, suddenly happy in a way she hasn't felt for a long time.

His smile stays in place as he reaches forward to shake her hand firmly. "Oscar."

* * *

><p>2.<p>

She finds him at the bar, which surprises her, because in all the months they've worked together she's never seen him here.

He glances over at her when she sits down on the stool next to him, but they don't say anything for a long time. Finally, she asks, "What are you drinking?" She means it to sound almost funny, with a bit of bite to it, but it just comes out quiet and curious.

"Scotch."

"Oh."

What do two people do after they've witnessed the horrors of the world together?

Angie traces the rings left on the wood of the bar with the tip of her finger, watching as the moisture collects on Vega's glass. This place - the atmosphere, the drinks, the other cops with their stories and gallows humor - it's supposed to make her feel better. Like what they're doing isn't just right, but effective and honorable.

It's doing a pretty crappy job of proving that to her right now.

Vega sighs, world-weary and sorrowful. "Today was a rough one, Ang."

"Yeah." She closes her eyes and can't help but see the blood-spattered stuffed rabbit and the wide, vacant, green eyes of their ten year-old victim. (Every time she looked at the body she pictured Manny.) She reaches over and plucks the tumbler from Vega's fingers, knocks the rest of his drink back, and then looks at him. "Sometimes even when you win you don't really win."

* * *

><p>3.<p>

"Flynn, Vega." Boyd sticks his head out of his office. "Got a fresh one for you."

Angie flips her pen up into the air and then catches it, saluting him in one fluid motion. "Yes, sir." She rolls out her chair and stands, waiting for Vega to finish buttoning his coat. When he does, she bumps her shoulder against his, the corners of her mouth slanting upward. "Let's go catch a murderer."

* * *

><p>4.<p>

He has a date tonight for the first time in a year.

Angie's been smirking knowingly at him all day and making sly comments and he thinks it's probably his cologne that gives him away.

Betty's eyebrows inch up a little bit higher on her forehead when he stops by the morgue to get some paperwork. "My, my, Detective," she says, pulling her glasses down the bridge of her nose, "are you entertaining a special lady friend tonight?"

Vega spreads his arms out wide, palms up. "I'm wearing the same things I normally wear to work," he replies, aware that he sounds a touch too hysterical. He can't handle every single person he comes in contact with knowing that something momentous is happening in his personal life.

Betty smiles, signing her name on the form he needs. "That's not a no."

He makes his way back up to the bullpen in a huff, tossing the papers down on his desk without a second glance. He works with a bunch of nosy-

"_Shit_."

Angie's head snaps up and she spins her chair around to face him. "What?"

"Is it really almost seven?" he asks, pulling at his sleeve to try and peek at his watch.

She taps her pen against the screen of her phone, half-tracing the lit up numbers. "Yep."

He shifts uncomfortably, not sure where to start. _They have a case_. He can't just leave her here with all the work. "I have uh- There's this thing-" He swallows around the barely formed sentences. "Maybe I should just cancel."

Angie rolls her eyes, waving him away. "Go on your date, Vega. By the time I see you again I'll have solved this almost-but-not-nearly-perfect murder."

"Are you sure?"

She tucks a pen behind her ear and smiles up at him. He's never seen someone as golden and blinding as her. "Go!" This time she uses both hands to gesture toward the door.

He leaves haltingly, pausing at the entrance of the bullpen to glance at her over his shoulder. She's turned back to her desk, focused on the paperwork in front of her, and shaking her head, still amused by him.

It takes Vega the thirty-second ride down in the elevator to make his decision.

When he steps out into the crisp Vancouver night he doesn't turn toward the restaurant he promised to meet his date at, instead he heads to a Chinese takeout place frequented by the force.

Forty minutes later, he's standing just outside the bullpen, a plastic bag stuffed with cartons dangling from one hand. Angie keeps working, unaware of his presence. She moves back and forth in front of the murder board, muttering to herself, before collapsing into a chair and throwing her feet up onto another.

Her eyes are closed when he finally walks in, so the sound of Vega plunking down the bag on her desk startles her, makes her shoulders go up at sharp angles. There's a moment when it looks like she might draw her gun, and then she realizes.

Her face lights up at the sight of him, eyes dark blue in the low lighting of the bullpen. "You brought food."

Vega presses chopsticks into her hand. "How's that crime-solving going?" he asks.

She leans back in her chair so that she can see his face better. "How did your date go?"

(It's not that he's a bad liar, it's just that he can't bring himself to be a good liar to her. _They're partners._ And that means the world to him.) His eyes widen just a little bit too much and he ducks his head quickly, peering down at his shoes as he shrugs. "It was...nice. It was nice." Vega glances back up at her, giving her a small smile. "I figured I would come back and help you."

She tilts her head, watching him steadily for a beat before taking her feet off the second chair and nudging it closer to him. "Be my guest, partner."

* * *

><p>5.<p>

They're sweeping through a warehouse, looking for their suspect, when Vega almost gets shot.

The place is still, the only audible sounds the occasional drip of water and the overlapping noise of their footsteps.

"I don't think he's here," Vega mutters in a sing-song voice.

"Well we haven't exactly finished looking," Angie mutters back to him in the same tone, sidestepping a dark, oily looking puddle.

They have a bet going. Winner picks dinner for the week, loser finishes the paperwork for the case.

"You know," he says eventually, squinting into the shadows that surround them, "there's nothing wrong with admitting that you're not right, Ang. I won't hold it against you."

He doesn't even have to look back at her to know she's rolling her eyes.

"I'm just saying. It would certainly make our lives-" He feels something blow past his left ear and then shatter into the wall behind him. He's been shot at before, knows the sudden rush of adrenaline well, but for some reason it doesn't register this time until he's on the ground, shards of window showering down around him. He tries to move, tries to do _something_, but the arc of gunfire seems concentrated solely on him and every time Vega shifts positions he cuts his hands on glass.

For one horrifying, pulse-pounding moment he can't find Angie. Then, between a stack of boxes he sees a flash of blonde and gunmetal, her mouth drawn and serious. He takes a deep breath and waits, listening for the break in the shooting when the suspect will be reloading. That's when Angie will take her chance.

It happens so quickly he nearly misses it, because almost immediately, the silence is cut short by another shot going off closer to him. Even from across the warehouse he can make out the dull thud of bullet smacking flesh and the man's groan as he collapses to the floor.

Then Angie's in front of him, picking her way through the minefield of glass and leaning over him to make sure he's all right. She reaches out and carefully brushes debris from his hair. "Vega," she says, breathless. He can't tell if it's supposed to be a curse or a prayer, but her eyes are that fearful, brush-with-death wide, and it makes his heart ache.

"I'm okay," he says, even though he's shaking so badly that he can hardly get a grasp on her arm. He settles for pinching the fabric of her coat between his fingers. "I'm okay."

* * *

><p>6.<p>

"So, what's your theory?" Angie squints out through the windshield of her car, watching the yellow crime scene tape that surrounds a well-manicured suburban yard flutter and snap in the crisp winter air. Vega shrugs, puffing out a breath. When the passenger side window fogs up he trails a finger along the glass, leaving swirls and squiggles in his wake. She waits, knows he's taking the time to think through everything they learned at the scene and piece it carefully together.

"Definitely someone he knew," he says finally, leaving his drawing and turning to look at her. "The hoe doesn't exactly seem like a weapon of convenience."

She nods, sliding the key into the ignition. "I agree. Someone knew he kept it in that shed." The car lets out a hoarse, angry sound and then sputters silent.

"Does this thing ever start on the first try?" Vega asks. She can see the corner of his grin glinting white in the frosty sunlight.

"Where would the fun in that be?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe we could actually leave places and not look like a couple of-"

The engine roaring to life cuts him off. Angie shoots him a triumphant smile that only grows wider when he rolls his eyes at her. As she backs onto the street, she taps out a beat against the wheel, thinking. "Why was he in the backyard?" she muses. "That's a little weird, right? It was freezing last night."

Vega pulls out his phone, flicks through a weather app until he finds what he's looking for. "The low was negative three around midnight," he says.

She pulls the car to a stop at an intersection. "What did the wife say about it?"

Vega flips his notepad open, quoting back to her. "'Jim probably went outside to weed the yard; he's started doing that recently when he can't fall asleep.'"

Angie snorts, hitting the gas too hard and making him lurch backward in his seat. "Who does yard work at three in the morning in the middle of winter? No way."

She can see him watching her out of the corner of her eye, his brow furrowed as he works through the problem. "So you think he was in to something he shouldn't have been?" he asks, stuffing his notepad back into his coat pocket. Just over his shoulder the shapes he drew on the window are starting to fade, brushed away by frost.

"Mhmm," she hums, then bites her lip, thinking. "Drugs?"

"Or an affair?"

Something about the word _affair_ rings true inside the warm stillness of Angie's car and they look at each other, understanding.

They have the start to all their answers.

(Building theory with him is effortless and perfect, the unending string of ideas stretching back and forth between them until they have the truth, heavy and sharp-edged, resting in their palms.

It's the closest thing to magic that they have.)

* * *

><p>7.<p>

They're sitting in front of the murder board, watching Lucas talk to Officer Sung on the other side of the bullpen doors when Angie smiles wistfully. "Remember the first time we met?"

Vega ducks his head, trying to hide his matching smile from her. "I do."

She pushes back in her chair, stretching her arms up over her head. "I didn't like you."

His eyes crinkle around the edges. "Liar," he says.

* * *

><p>8.<p>

He has the blink of an eye to choose: Slater or Angie. Slater. Or. Angie.

(It's not even a difficult decision.)

The blink of an eye and then it's over. He doesn't glance at the body. Angie stares at him with a heartbroken look on her face and steps around Slater, moving toward Vega like she's being pulled. Her fingers brush along his shoulder, down his lapel, and then she's pressing herself against him and holding on for dear life. He wraps one arm around her, bringing the other up to rest against her side.

Breathing.

They're both still breathing.

He thinks about this moment later, after all of the paperwork is done and he's sitting at home alone. He thinks about how he could feel the flare of her ribcage beneath his palm as he held her, how she continued to lean against him even as they left the scene, everything about her still shocked and icy cold. He'd rubbed her fingers between his, trying desperately to warm her up.

His phone buzzes, and he smiles when he sees it's from her. _Booze. Bullpen. Ten minutes. You in?_

Vega taps out a reply, then pushes himself off his couch to go find his shoes.

She's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

He should tell her.


End file.
